Microbial Ecology / Diversity / Geobiology and Earth Systems Sciences Courses
offered with the present or former Support of
swiss | i-research & training
 
     
     
  Each of the courses listed below has a detailed homepage which you will reach by clicking on the course image. The course homepage contains information about the scientific contents, the course organization, the aims and goals and when and where the particular course takes place. Access to folders and files requires OLAT credentials.
If you aim to get credit, please make sure that your home university accepts the course as partial fulfillment for your degree requirements.
 
                   
     Geobiology
   Lecture Course for 1st Semester BSc students
   Earth Science Department, ETH Zürich.
   Established 2016
.
 
  The course is offered annually in the Fall Semester to students immatriculated at ETHZ. It discusses Earth's biological history as it can be reconstructed from geochemical traces and morphological fossils preserved in rocks, sediments and soils and from genomes as records of an organism's legacy. Didactically, it follows modern evolutionary and ecological approaches by asking where organisms, mostly microorganisms, live, why they live where they are, how they interact with rock minerals, how they alter the conditions in their own habitats through metabolic activities, how they can tolerate variable and, at places, extreme conditions, how they interact in communities and with geochemical cycles and how they can respond metabolically to short-term and long-term local and global changes. Geobiological insights are applied towards solving environmental problems and to defining strategies for the search for life on other planets.  
     
     
      Alpine Geobiology & Biogeochemistry
    Field- and laboratory-based Courses in the
    Biogeoscience Areana Silvretta (Southeastern
    Swiss Alps).
    Established 1979
 
  During semester break in the fall (August - September). Suitable for students interested in learning about high mountain microbial ecosystems, biogeochemical nutrient flow in oligotrophic environments, ecosystem evolution in glacier retreat habitats and about organic geochemistry of sediments and in soil formation.
An EGU course executed together with participants from associated universitites. Contact Kurt Hanselmann, if your university is not yet a partner of the Alpine Geobiology Program but you would like to participate in one of the courses.
 
     
     
       Microbial & Geochemical Oceanography /
     SCOR Course

     International Research Discovery Camp
     on land and at sea in the South Atlantic.
     Established 2013.
 
  Lectures, Lab & Field Course of the Graduate Research Network (RGNO) at the Marine Station of the University of Namibia in Henties Bay and at the National Marine Research and Information Center, Namibia, and at sea. 4 weeks annually (2014 - 2021) between March and June, depending on cruise schedule and approval. For students interested in participating in interdisciplinary projects on geochemical processes and marine microbial ecology of the Benguela Upwelling Ecosystem, mainly in the roles microorganisms play in nutrient cycling and food web processes.
Accessible worldwide for students and established investigstors who maintain active marine research projects related to course topics. See flyer
 
     
     
      Ecology and Diversity / ASI Course
    of marine Microorganisms
    
International Research Course
    South Pacific. Course Announcement Site
    Established 2000
 
  Lectures, Lab & Field Course at the Marine Station of the University of Concepción in Dichato, Chile. Every 2nd year for 3 to 4 weeks in January. For students interested in project work on microbial oceanography of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem, in applying geochemical analyses and molecular techniques to microbial ecology and ecosystem functioning and performing experiments with phyto- and bacterioplankton.
Accessible worldwide.
 
     
     
      Microbial Diversity / MBL Course
    Methodology and Discovery Course
    Woods Hole, Cape Cod, USA.
    Established 1971
 
  Lectures & Lab Course for graduate students. Annually for 7 to 8 weeks in July - August at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA, USA. For students interested in learning how to enrich and isolate phototrophic and chemotrophic bacteria, archaea and eukarya, charaterizing them genotypically and phenotypically, studying their physiology and energetics and their interactions in symbiotic relationships and elucidating their diversity and distribution in natural ecosystems.
Accessible worldwide.
 
     
     
      GeoBiology / Agouron Course
    Advanced Field and Labortory Course
    Catalina Island, CA, USA.
    Established 2002
 
  Field, Lab and Lecture Course for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral investigators. Annually for 5 weeks in June - July at the California Institute of Technologyin Pasadena and the University of Southern California's Marine Science Center on Catalina Island. For students interested in integrating geology and geochemistry into biology and vice versa; learning how biology shaped the evolution of Earth, what the rock record tells us about past biologically mediated events and how Earth's ecosystems did and will respond to globally changing environmental conditions.
Accessible worldwide.
 
     
     
      Biogeosciences, Geology and Ore Deposits
    2016 Field Trip to Namibia offered by the
    Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zürich.
 
  For MSc Students enrolled at the D-ERDW who are interested in exposing themselves in an interdisciplinary approach to topics of Earth history. Namibia offers a great wealth of geologically, biogeochemically and oceanographically unique features that span a large period of Earth's history. They reach from ancient cratons to thrust tectonics and snowball Earth phenomena, from intrusion-type rocks to mining of ore deposits, from stromatolites to modern biogeochemical processes along the coast of Southwest Africa which are driven by the cold Benguela Current.  
     
     
      Geomicrobiology & Biogeochemistry
    
Lecture and Lab Course
    ETH Zürich; 2009 - 2017
 
  Offered every Spring Semester, middle of February to end of May. For students immatriculated at ETH and UZH and interested in studying interactions between microorganisms and between microbes and rocks. How microbes "make" minerals and how they can make a living with dissolved rock components. How geo(micro)biological concepts are applied to Geo-Engineering and to Astrobiology.